The phone was ringing often on Wednesday morning at Fred Radde & Sons, Inc. in New Germany. By noon, a handful of folks had showed up at the auction house. They were there to get a closer look at the items that will be auctioned off late on Monday afternoon.
"It's been fascinating because of who Denny Hecker is; his notoriety and so on and so forth," Radde said. This is the second time in 3 months that Radde will auction off items seized after car mogul Denny Hecker filed for bankruptcy. The money raised will go to Hecker's creditors; creditors he owes an estimated $767 million to.
During the first auction, people purchased Hecker's golf clubs, boats, snowmobiles, and personal watercraft. This time, trustees cleared out part of his vault. "How much stuff, well, item-wise, there's a bout 150 items, there's 58 watches," Radde explained.
The 14 Rolex watches were particularly interesting to Derek Laumbach, who buys and sells watches for a living. Laumbach estimated the 58 piece, timepiece collection, could net more than $100,000. "I think these will probably go higher than they typically would just because it's Denny Hecker's collection," Laumbach surmised.
Bob Humboldt of nearby Lester Prairie came by to look at Hecker's golf prints. He was amazed at how much stuff the car mogul had amassed. "You just wonder how much thought went into buying any of the things. Was it all just impulse buying?" he wondered.
The items will be auctioned off on Monday at Fred Radde & Sons in New Germany.
(Copyright 2009 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
